by Martha Wells
Tremaine ignored them all, studying the distant line of buildings on the far side of the landing area through the field glasses. The terrain sloped down and in contrast to the hangars, the structures there seemed to be all shoddy temporary buildings crowded together. Past that she could see larger structures rising above them. They looked as though they might be stone towers, perhaps three or four stories tall at most. According to Calit, that was the old city that the Maton had grown around. The harbor would be at its feet.
“What about an airship?” Dubos said suddenly.
Tremaine lowered the glasses, staring at him. “What about one?”
His pack over his shoulder, the sheen of sweat and dirt on his forehead, he was studying the landing field intently. “Instead of a boat. Our mission was to get one, after all. Might be nice if we came back with one.”
She considered it dubiously, peering at the nearest shed through the field glasses. “I don’t know. I was thinking of stealing somebody’s fishing boat, not making off with a military craft.”
“They don’t have any artillery emplacements around the field,” Basimi pointed out. “Doesn’t make much sense with what the boy said about an invasion that they fought off.”
“No, but that invasion sounds like a political invention.” Molin frowned. “It means if we could take off, they’d have to launch another ship to go after us.”
Basimi snorted. “There’s nothing to stop them from doing that.”
Dubos shook his head. “I’m saying it’s a thought, I’m not saying I think we should do it.”
Ilias was nudging Tremaine in the arm. “They think we should steal a flying whale?” he asked, obviously intrigued. Giliead stepped closer, interested.
“It’s not a good idea,” Tremaine told Ilias firmly. He would know just enough Rienish to pick up on that. And she sensed that he and Giliead would welcome the distraction from the problem of the crystal.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because—” She hesitated. There’s something obvious about it. Somewhere there’s a Gardier saying, “They ended up here because they were after one of our airships, they lost the one they had and they’ll go after another.” “Because my gut says it’s not a good idea.”
Ilias considered it, then nodded slowly. “All right.”
Tremaine let out a breath. She told the others in Rienish, “Basimi’s right, they shot us down once, there’s nothing to stop them doing it again. And the airships will have more guards than a boat. We need a quiet escape, with no shooting.”
“You’re right,” Dubos admitted, sounding more reluctant than grudging. “I just hate going back empty-handed.”
I’m surrounded by optimists again, Tremaine thought, rolling her eyes as she stuffed the glasses back in her pack. Empty-handed, full-handed, any kind of handed, they would be lucky to get back at all.
Florian stood in the room belowdecks confronting the locked door. She wasn’t alone; the guards were in the corridor behind her, but the air was clammy and warm down here no matter how hard the vents worked, and there seemed to be shadows in every corner despite the overhead electrics.
She cleared her throat. “Hello,” she said cautiously in Syrnaic. “They said you were asking for Giliead.”
She heard movement on the other side of the door. “I was, my flower. Where is he?”
His flower. Florian pressed her lips together. As if I need that right now. “He isn’t here just at the moment. Did you want something?”
There was a silence. “What about Ilias? Or is he refusing to speak to me?”
“He’s not here either.”
“I see. Can you perhaps take a message to them?”
“No, I can’t. Look, if you aren’t—”
“You are not, I think, the young woman I spoke to before?”
“We’ve never met.” She shook her hair back impatiently. “And if you just wanted someone to chat with, I’ve got things to do, so good-bye.”
“Don’t be hasty.” There was a slight hesitation. “You have some power yourself, I smell it through the door.”
Florian’s lips twisted in disgust. I could’ve done without knowing that. “Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. For all the good it did her or anyone else.
“You know I have sworn to use my skills for your people.”
“That’s not quite how I heard it.” That’s enough. Ilias was right about him, he’s just trying to get a reaction out of me. She turned for the door.
“That aside…Another wizard on this ship has been trying to control me.”
Florian stopped, facing away from the door, feeling a cold prickle of unease climb up her spine and settle in her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“He comes to the door, or sometimes to one of the walls, and whispers his curses to me. They have had no effect so far…that I know of. He came again last night.”
She turned slowly, staring at the unrevealing door. “Are you serious?” He—it—whatever that thing was in the hospital is supposed to be dead. It was a construct, it disappeared when Gerard and Niles did the banishing adjuration. But Tremaine had said she had seen it in the surgeon’s office at the same time she thought Giliead was fighting it in the wardroom, that there might be two of them. When nothing further had happened that night, they had thought she was wrong, that she had seen it just before it had gone to the wardroom.
“Does it worry you? I admit, it worries me.” Ixion continued in a conversational tone, “I thought at first it was some plot of yours—not yours personally, you understand. I thought I was being toyed with. But then yesterday he came to the door, and I realized that my guards spoke to one another during his curse, as if they were unaware of his presence. And why should one of your wizards hide from his own men?”
Florian wet her dry lips. If this was true…Then Gerard and Niles had banished a construct, but the sorcerer who created it was still on the ship. “Did he say anything, tell you his name, who he was?”
“No. But it occurs to me that when he comes again I might engage him in conversation.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, you might do that.”
Walking along the dusty road toward the Maton, Tremaine’s stomach was eaten up with anxiety, and it was taking more of her willpower not to hit Calit or to tell Basimi to shut up about the damn stinging bugs. At least he had obeyed her injunction to only complain in Gardier, even when no one else was near.
The Gardier civilian clothes she wore were coarse and itchy and would have been unbearable if the day hadn’t been overcast and fairly cool. Hers had come from Besta’s bag and the uniform coveralls Basimi, Dubos and Molin wore were from the airship. There wasn’t much traffic on the road, only the occasional truck and a few small groups of people plodding along like themselves. The presence of all the foot traffic was what had made Tremaine agree to this plan.
They had decided to split into three groups. Tremaine, with Calit as a guide, would use Besta’s identity papers to get into the Maton and search the harbor for a boat to steal. Calit had explained that the papers just certified that the bearer’s name was Besta and that she had charge of a boy named Calit and three other children and their rank was Service. According to him, Besta was not an uncommon name. Tremaine figured the Gardier would not have been able to identify the woman they had accidentally shot yesterday yet anyway, especially without her papers. She also figured she had about a 30 percent chance that Calit would attempt to betray her and that she would have to kill him.
Basimi, Dubos and Molin would poke around in the outlying areas of the Maton, where identification papers weren’t required, trying to find out where to steal supplies for the trip. The Syprians, who could neither speak Gardier nor pass for Gardier, were going to scout the coast to look for a spot near here that the boat could put in to pick up the rest of the party. Once the boat was stolen.
That is, most of the Syprians would be scouting the coast. Giliead would be staying behind to try to communicate with the Gardier cry
stal.
Earlier, while the others were still changing into their Gardier clothes, Tremaine had said uneasily to Ilias, “If we’re going to steal a ship tonight…”
Ilias had nodded, wiping his nose. “He’ll do it. Or, at least, he’ll try.”
She let her breath out in relief, looking over to where Giliead and Cletia were crouched on the ground going through their supplies. “Is he mad at me?” she asked, feeling like an idiot.
Ilias’s expression said he agreed with that assessment. He snorted. “No.”
“All right, all right.” She eyed him worriedly. “Just be careful.”
“Me?” Ilias grimaced, giving her a rueful look. “You’re the one going into the leviathan’s den.”
Leviathan’s den fit it well enough. I feel overwhelmed, Tremaine thought, sick to her stomach. They were passing between buildings now, metal-walled and metal-roofed, starting to rust at the joins. She saw more figures, men and women both, in the plain brown uniforms such as Basimi and the others wore, but most of these people were civilians. They were dressed as poorly as she and Calit, and many were occupied with unloading handcarts into the larger round storage buildings.
There was no sign of the color and whimsy that had given the ruined village so much character, but despite the work going on it wasn’t all grim silence. They passed a small lot with plank tables and chairs that seemed to be an open-air eating establishment. Some of the buildings seemed to be divided up into apartments or family dwellings; she saw small children playing inside doorways, smelled food cooking, heard laughter, saw women or older children hurrying about on errands. But according to Calit, this was where the Service families lived. She thought the Labor pens wouldn’t be quite so homey.
Calit tugged on her arm. “Up there, that’s where they ask for papers.”
Tremaine threw a look at Basimi, making sure he heard. He nodded, said, “See you later,” in Gardier, and took the next turn, Molin and Dubos following.
She and Calit rounded a corner and reached an earthwork wall, where a metal gate stood open and a short line of people were waiting to get their identification papers checked so they could pass through. Tremaine’s stomach tried to crawl up into her throat as she joined the line.
Looking around to try to distract herself, she saw that in the maze of temporary buildings there were signs of attempts to build more permanent structures. Down one of the byways was a half-constructed two-story building with heavy timbers set into the ground to form supports for the walls and a foundation of quarried stone. But it was roofless, and no one was working on it. “Why did they stop?” she asked Calit. “Don’t shrug.”
He arrested it in midmotion, shoulders lifted, throwing her a startled look. He turned it into a wriggle, saying, “Got sent off to the war, probably.”
They reached the front of the line, where a tired-looking older man in Gardier military uniform looked over their documents. Tremaine kept one eye on Calit, but the boy just chewed a fingernail, radiating adolescent boredom. The guard passed them through the gate without comment.
Her sweat turning cold in the breeze, Tremaine took Calit’s hand and went into the Maton.
The path curved, leading down a rough hillside where steps were gouged out of the dirt and the temporary buildings dropped away. Tremaine got a view of the heart of the Maton and stopped to stare.
It had been a city once, with rambling buildings and four-story towers of quarried stone connected by winding cobbled paths. They had the same round windows and curved doorframes as the village. The mansard roofs had fanciful carvings under the eaves; she couldn’t make out much from this distance except the impression of curves and jubilant shapes.
This hill wasn’t high enough for a good view, but she could glimpse water between the buildings and knew the city must curve around the port. There were temporary metal structures here too, the round storage houses and the long low barracks, crammed into every open space and crowding the elegant stone. She was fairly sure those open spaces had been garden plots once, or parks. One of the larger towers at the far end of the curve had the great dark shape of an airship moored to its roof. She couldn’t see much from here except the outline of the spiky ridge along the back and the tail fins, but it looked larger than the other airships on the field, dwarfing the top of the building.
Calit hadn’t stopped, and she hurried down the rough path, catching up with him in a few long steps. “Did your mother say anything about the city that was here before the Maton?” She kept her voice low, as the path was more crowded down here.
“She used to live here, when she was young. There was more room then.” He flicked a cautious look at a party in uniform making their way up the other side of the path. These men and women didn’t wear just simple coveralls, but long jackets belted over pants and boots, though it was all in the same brown. Tremaine ignored them and was ignored in return, though the back of her neck prickled at their nearness. Calit lowered his voice a little. “Back then people could live anywhere they wanted.”
Tremaine just nodded. She didn’t want to carry on the conversation when there were so many people to overhear.
The path got a little wider, turning to cobbles as the stone buildings rose up on either side. Uniforms were everywhere now, strolling and talking, walking hurriedly, going in and out of wide rounded doorways. There were still enough civilians for her and Calit to blend in, but she noticed that some of them had much better clothing. At least, it was better material and more elaborate, though it still had the same dull colors. Calit had said, or said that his mother had said, that everyone had to give up all luxuries, or all appearance of luxuries, when the attack had happened so long ago.
Tremaine knew they were close when she could smell dead fish on the salt-scented breeze. They went around a corner, veered around another larger stone tower and went through a noisy area where round metal storage huts were being loaded or unloaded. They dodged a flotilla of handcarts and were suddenly approaching the port. It was bigger than Tremaine had realized; the angle and the height of the older city had hidden it from view until now.
Old stone walkways and new wooden piers extended out in rows where ships of all sizes were docked. Cargo barges, dark-hulled gunships like the one the Ravenna had destroyed, larger warships of classes she couldn’t identify. Wood-framed warehouses lined the harbor front, packed with boxes.
So much variety, she thought, biting her lip as she looked over the array of boats. They needed something only a few people could sail, something not too big or complicated. There had to be simple fishing boats somewhere; surely all these people had to eat. They hadn’t solved the problem yet of how Dubos, who had some experience sailing, was going to get in past the gate to help her get the thing out of the harbor and to the meeting point. Worry about that later, she thought a little desperately, taking Calit’s hand and leading the way along the docks.
Giliead took a breath, eyeing the box that held the Gardier curse crystal. The burnished metal case looked alien and malevolent, but that might just be his imagination. “I don’t want to do this.”
“I don’t want you to do this either,” Ilias admitted.
Cimarus and Cletia were waiting on the other side of the clearing, ready to leave on the scouting foray. Giliead wasn’t sure how much Ilias had told them about what he was about to do. He didn’t expect it was much, but that was something he would have to worry about later. He nodded. “But I want us to stay here less.” He reached for the box lid.
As he lifted it he was conscious of Ilias slipping to his feet, taking a step back as Giliead had taught him long ago. He could see the shifting haze of dark colors that clung to the dull facets and the rock the crystal grew on like a fungus. He knew the colors were the substance that Gerard called ether.
He had felt the curses coming out of these things before, but he had never had the leisure to focus on one for this long. He had expected it to feel foul, like Ixion, like the Gimora wizard, like the shades in the Sura
Vale; on the whole, he decided this would have been easier if it had.
He felt the tentative mental touch of the thing. It wasn’t like the god-sphere; it wasn’t as in control, as aware of its surroundings or of him. He saw it start to reach a tendril outward and shot out a hand, not sure if he could block it or not. It pulled back from his touch, startled.
When it came down to it, Giliead wasn’t sure he knew how to talk to it. Treating it the way he would a shade, he pushed a thought toward it: Can you hear me?
He felt it withdraw, startled. He wondered if the Gardier spoke to it in a different way, if it wasn’t used to this method of communication. Curious, he asked it, Do you know what you are?
Nothing. He carefully pushed an image of himself toward it.
Time seemed to still. He waited, taking a calming breath. Then it pushed an image back to him.
It was a woman’s face, fading too quickly, too unformed for him to make out many details. He reached for the image, trying to concentrate on it, and felt it retreat abruptly.
He looked up at Ilias, his expression rueful. “I think this is going to take a while. You’d better go.” It wasn’t a far walk to the sea—Giliead could smell salt on the wind even from here—but it was late afternoon already, and it might take a while for them to find a suitable landing.
Ilias nodded reluctantly, ruffled Giliead’s hair, and went to follow Cimarus and Cletia.
Adram watched Disar pacing in front of one of the trucks, the Command officer’s face set in a grimace of frustration. Adram looked away to conceal the dark amusement in his eyes. They had been searching the airship hangars and the woods at the fringes of the field all morning with no success. Now, their vehicles parked on the open field in the tall shadow of the reserve hangar, their Service men sitting around idle, Disar was running out of options.
Disar’s second, a young man named Etrim, had spread the map out on the truck’s tailgate, marking their route. Sweat was beginning to roll down his brow despite the cool breeze and the omnipresent clouds of the season. Adram didn’t know what the Command personnel had been threatened with if they failed to capture the Rien, but he suspected it wasn’t pleasant. It was yet another reminder of how lucky he had been to be able to talk his way into the Science branch.